Lake Atitlan, Guatemala
Ships, Models, Technology 

The Colin Archer 

Colin Archer was a Norwegian ship architect, who in 1893 designed and built the class of rescue ships now simply referred to as "Colin Archer". The extremely rugged vessels became iconic in Norway.

Archer spent a lot of time trying to come up with the perfect hull, making the ship almost unsinkable.

I find this ship to have really beautiful proportions and lines, so I decided to build a model of it.



The "Stavanger", part of the fleet of Norwegian Society for Sea Rescue.


Details of the ship, 46 foot, 30 ton.


The delivery of the first rescue vessel in Christiania (Oslo, Norway), September 1893.


"L'Escargot", my friend Rick Malaise's Colin Archer that he built himself. I visited Rick on Langkawi, Malaysia to learn about boats, with the intent of eventually getting myself a boat to live on. That dream was soon crushed after a serious case of sea sickness.


The Colin Archer 1:40 scale model I built. I got a kit from Billing Boats. Overall it was a good kit, but severely lacking in instructions.


Overview of the deck.


A lot of tiny details that were testing my patience, especially tying tiny bowline knots on thin sewing thread. Most parts were from pine wood and I stained them to look like teak.


View of the deadeyes, shroud and port side lantern.


Detail of the helm and lifebuoy.

« ‡ »